Interview With Wilson Alvarracin of the Marxist-Leninist
Communist Party of Ecuador

In the previous issue of this journal we published a
resolution of the Movement for Popular Democracy of Ecuador which indicated the
reasons why it had participated in a democratic government with patriotic
positions and then withdrew from it as it began a slide to pro-imperialist
positions after a period of six months. The following interview with a member of
the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador gives further insights into
these significant developments.

On the PCMLE and MPD’s support for Lucio Gutierrez:

Our party and movement supported the project of Lucio
Gutierrez because at that time he emerged as a figure symbolic of the popular
consciousness of the people in Ecuador for change.

Lucio Gutierrez came out of the military during the
insurrection of 2000 to support the people. If he had not come out nobody would
have known who he was. He was democratic and also patriotic so we thought we
could reflect our own vision of the future through his project. Our problem was
that we did not have our own candidate and had to use someone else to reflect
our programme.

We did not support Lucio Gutierrez as a person but his
project which is called New Ecuador which was a democratic proposal. It was not
even anti-imperialist but it was anti-crisis so we thought it was important to
support it. For the first time in Ecuador we had a candidate for Presidency,
with a chance of winning electorally, who was not a candidate of the bourgeoisie
or the imperialist parties but a candidate coming out of the people, so it was
important to support the consciousness of the people.

The groups of the bourgeoisie were a little afraid of what was
going on with Lucio Gutierrez because our movement supported him with 200,000
votes. After the first round of elections (which did not result in outright
victory for any candidate, forcing the elections on to the second round) the
bourgeoisie did not see their interests reflected in any of the candidates so
they started working on Lucio Gutierrez.

In the Gutierrez government we had one minister of
environment but we were working both within and outside the government,
mobilizing the people.

On the current left position against Gutierrez

After six months of the Gutierrez regime we declared
ourselves independent of his government and opposed them. We started mobilising
the teachers, farmers, indigenous peoples, when the Lucio Gutierrez government
changed its stated policies. People had voted for the democratic,
anti-imperialist project and not for Gutierrez as an individual. He changed and
followed the line of neo-liberalism that Ecuador had before and also started
negotiations with the IMF.

Now we are calling on the people to carry out an insurrection
against the government and take power into their own hands. Lucio Gutierrez now
considers us his biggest enemies.

We were always conscious about what was going to happen.
Gutierrez went to the School of the Americas and was trained there. So we were
working both within and outside the government and continued with our work
outside.

On the PCMLE record vis-à-vis electoral politics

PCMLE is not a legal party, so we put up candidates through
another political formation called the Movement for Popular Democracy (MPD). MPD
is not a Communist Party on its own and only a means of expressing the goals of
the PCMLE – it is a democratic and patriotic party. It is legal and anyone can
join it.

Through the MPD, we always had our own candidate for
Presidential elections since 1978. In 1986 our candidate was the fourth out of
eight candidates for presidency.

The MPD has passed the 5 percent of votes required, more than
200,000 votes, to be a recognized political party in Ecuador and we have three
deputies in parliament. At the local level we have over 160 councillors in
various cities. To give some context about the electoral situation in Ecuador you
must know that the largest party in the country receives only 12 percent of the
votes and we have 5 percent.

Within the PCMLE we don’t think we can get power through
peaceful means. We participate in the elections but not to get power, it is only
a step in that direction. ‘Popular power cannot be constructed step by step – it
has to be taken forcefully. We want to make a big front against neo-liberalism.
One way is through the MPD.

We are also seeking to create the conditions for armed
struggle. We are not calling for a socialist revolution but a democratic and
anti-imperialist one. It is not possible to go for socialist revolution in the
first step.

Ecuador is too dependent and the technology is not
developed enough to have a socialist revolution. But the final goal is
socialism.